Touch
by KRSONMar
Summary: What if Gordon weren't always covered up in that HEV suit? Can you have a moment involving touch that is intimate, but more emotionally than erotically? Can one experience mean different things to two different participants? An experiment in fluff.
1. Intro

**A/N:** Thanks to my main beta, HedyLamarr, for your in-depth input! It was invaluable!

* * *

"I can't believe you took that thing out with a punch!"Alyx said, helping Gordon into the medic bay at the White Forest base.

"I just _finished it off_ with a punch, it had already been weakened by the bullets we both shot at it," Gordon said, "and really, it was just instinct. The thing was bearing down on me; I panicked."He adjusted his glasses with his good arm by pushing the bridge up his nose with his middle finger in a practiced gesture.

"You're just too modest, you know that?"Alyx said. "I'm going to tell everyone you punched that thing into submission and there were no bullets involved."She grinned up at him with the characteristic smile that he had learned meant she was teasing him. She did it often—she had inherited her sense of humor from her father. He now knew it was a sign of affection, although he wondered if it was also a way of flirting with him—he was no good at telling that sort of thing.

They had been out scouting a mine, having been tipped off that there might be some escaped civilians from City 17 hiding there from the Combine, when a scouting party of Hunters had come upon them. Alyx was still terrified of Hunters after her recent run-in with one, but tried hard to ignore the feeling and had taken two of them out with her shotgun before unloading what was left of her shells at the only remaining one, after Gordon had taken out the third.

She had missed most of those shots and had to pump her handgun ammo into it, which was far less effective. Gordon had only his crowbar and the gravity gun left and was using both to good effect, but the damn thing just hadn't seemed to want to die. It had staggered around and knocked the crowbar out of Gordon's hand, then pinned him against a tree trunk with the upper portion of its body—Alyx's heart leapt into her throat—and to her surprise, Gordon had punched the cyborg creature, causing it to finally topple. When she ran to him and made sure he was okay, she had asked him why he had suddenly dropped the gravity gun and then used the crowbar in his left hand. Then she saw the flechette lodged in the armor of his right arm.

He insisted he was fine, and maybe that was true, but Alyx didn't trust him not to understate his injuries. They needed more ammo from the base anyway, so they'd hopped into the car and driven back to White Forest…only to find that the scouting party they had fought had been stragglers from a bigger attack that had wreaked havoc on some other rebels from the base.

They had reached the medic bay door by now and Alyx pressed the intercom button to get them in.

"Rodney, I've got Gordon here—"

"Again?"she was interrupted by the head medic.

"He took some damage from a Hunter just now, and I want to make sure he's okay,"Alyx continued, ignoring the head medic's exasperation.

"Alright, I got a bunch of people in right now from an ambush earlier this morning, so we've got our hands full, but come on in and we'll have a look."

The intercom's green transmission light went out as he finished speaking and was replaced by the orange one over the medic bay door and a buzzing that indicated the door was being opened for them. The medic bay was one of the more fortified sections of the base; if the base were attacked, they'd need to protect their medical supplies carefully in order to successfully hold off the intrusion. Therefore, the whole medic bay was enclosed by a series of automated doors that required various types of authorization to open.

The red-striped steel door slid open for them, and Alyx ushered Gordon inside, where they were met by Rodney, looking harried, and the smells and cries of a good dozen or so injured rebels from earlier this morning.

"What happened?"Alyx asked in alarm.

"While you two were dealing with that situation in the mines, a pack of Hunters snuck up on a scouting crew foraging for supplies on the other side of the valley. We had to send in reinforcements, and we got them all, but our guys took some damage too. No one was killed," he hurriedly added, seeing the question forming on Alyx's face, "but the Hunters seem to have developed some new kind of flechette and its torn these guys up pretty bad."

Alyx's eyes widened."Actually…"she pointed to Gordon's arm, where a flechette was still lodged. "This thing somehow got into his suit and we haven't been able to get it out. I thought maybe you and the medical staff would know how to remove it without causing him more damage."

"He's got one of these things too?"Rodney examined the thing more closely. "My God, it's gone through his suit! I thought that thing was nearly impenetrable!"

"Well,see,"said Gordon, speaking up, but only metaphorically, and Rodney had to lean in to hear his words—that was common when listening to Gordon speak—"it's gotten into one of the chinks where the armor plates of the suit join together. I had another one hit the plate on the back of my left leg, but it only went in a few millimeters and I was able to pull it out easily. It didn't get near my skin."

"Huh!"Rodney said, fascinated."So it was a lucky shot for the Hunter, not so much for you! Then again…"He examined the flechette closely; it was buried about an inch into the suit on the gap between armor plates on Gordon's right bicep. "…maybe you were lucky as well. It seems the flechettes couldn't make it through the rest of your armor and this one could only make it through an inch in!"

"Can you get it out?"Alyx asked, aware that the medical staff had more people to tend to and Rodney was busy marveling at Gordon's suit.

"Oh yes," said Rodney, straightening up and seeming to realize this as well. "We've gotten quite good today at removing these little , head through that door—Alyx, go with him—and sit on the examination table. The staff all know how to remove these by now, so I'll send someone in, but Alyx, I'm going to ask you to patch him up yourself if you can. I'm afraid I can't spare anyone for a minor injury right now."He held his hands palms-up to them both in apology, and then started calling out orders to the rest of the medical staff."Alicia, go grab some more surgical needles; Ben, I need you in Room A-1 to assist with a removal!"He waved Alyx and Gordon into the room.

Alyx groaned, and Gordon sighed; Ben was the medical attendant nobody liked. He had never seemed to really learn appropriate social skills and was a little too blunt; people going into the medic bay were never happy to see him when they were already hurt or sick and then had to deal with his attitude. He was known for spending all his time playing an ancient Gameboy from the 1980s and loudly resenting being interrupted from it. People tried not to do so, because he was always rude whenever one did interact with him.

Furthermore, the two had their own reasons for not wanting to see Ben. Because Alyx was the only person who argued in his favor, he had decided she was hot for him and run away with it. Gordon knew Alyx disliked Ben about as much as everyone else, but couldn't help being compassionate towards him, and she tried to politely deflect Ben's clumsy and obnoxious attempts at flirting. But Ben remained convinced that Alyx Vance, renown rebel fighter and the hottest woman on the base, couldn't resist him.

Gordon, on the other hand, was somebody Ben seemed to reserve special reserves of his poor social skills for. He seemed to think Gordon was a big-headed hotshot who fancied himself an action hero, and let Gordon and everyone else know it, although nothing could be farther from the truth. Gordon wasn't looking forward to this interaction, and he already knew how it would play out; Ben would flirt incessantly with Alyx, who would consistently deflect his advances in a way anyone else would take as a clear "not interested" message, but she wouldn't be unkind enough to put Ben in his place, and so would have to bite her tongue and ride it out. Meanwhile, Ben would be dropping constant insinuations about Gordon's supposed ego and trying to puncture it, and Gordon would be too mild-mannered to shut him up and would hope that his continued forced politeness to Ben would change Ben's mind—which it never did. The three's interactions always resulted in Alyx spending the whole time both fending off Ben's advances while trying not to bite his head off and having to defend Gordon from Ben without making Ben jealous. It was never pretty and always exhausting for both of them.

Gordon gave Alyx a look as they entered the room that acknowledged their shared anticipation of an unpleasant encounter.

"Oh come on, Gordon,"Alyx teased, "aren't you looking forward to seeing our _charismatic_ friend too?"She winked at him, and he chuckled under his breath, then muttered, "If you like him so much, why don't you date him?"Alyx punched his good arm good-naturedly and sat down in the one chair in the room, while Gordon hopped up on the examination table.

Ben pushed the door open and entered the room, immediately greeting them with, "Well, if it isn't …_again_. And the lovely Alyx."He winked at Alyx in what he clearly thought was a roguish way, and Gordon saw that she already had her set, carefully polite face on that she always wore around Ben.

"Hi, Ben," she smiled in a fake, strained way.

"So what is it this time, hot-shot? Doing something reckless again and got a boo-boo?"

"One of those modified flechettes the Hunters are using now got into a chink in his armor. It's not in very deep, but we just need you to take it out. Rodney said only the medical staff knows how to remove them, but that he couldn't spare anyone to actually clean and bandage the wound, so I'm supposed to do that while you get back to the others out there,"Alyx explained.

Ben clicked his tongue in fake sympathy. "Aww, poor Doctor Freeman needs someone else's help to remove the big scary flechette, huh? What were you doing when you got this, big guy? Doing something _heroic_ again?"

Ben was examining the flechette and Gordon was resisting the urge to treat Ben the same way he'd treated the Hunter earlier—by giving him a good punch to the chin.

"You know we use up so much of our supplies on you, Doc?I don't know if you think this is your own personal health spa, but you get yourself hurt so often and so badly, we go through half our morphine stock on you. Rodney's always complaining about keeping a separate supply of bandages and surgical thread on hand just for you."

"I'm sure that's an overstatement, Ben,"Alyx growled understatedly. "And I remember how happy Rodney was when Gordon found that working refrigerator for Rodney to keep serums and samples in."

Ben snorted,"Yeah, well—"

"And how he praised Gordon for being selfless because Gordon always offers to go scavenging for supplies for the medic bay,"Alyx said before Ben could get any further.

"Well—"

"And how he said that the way Gordon had suggested he re-organize the space in the main room had opened up room for three more beds at a time."Alyx's eyes were narrowed now.

Ben was sour now.

"All I'm saying is, if he wasn't so reckless, trying to be a hero all the time, he wouldn't get hurt so much!"

"Gordon is bold, but not enough to be called reckless. If you'd ever fought with him, you'd know that. He's fearless…although maybe a little too much for his own good."She ended this with a small smile in Gordon's direction.

Gordon looked downward to avert his eyes and smiled sheepishly. He was glad to have Alyx around; she knew the comment about using up the medical supplies had gotten to him, and had shoved the truth right in Ben's face.

_She knows I worry—too much probably—about being a burden to the base. She has my insecurities down pat._

Gordon was somewhat neurotic about his sense of responsibility, as Alyx had gently pointed out to him. What he liked about her was that she was practical enough to see the reality of a given situation and complimented him anyway. He was hard enough on himself; having someone as pragmatic as Alyx, who knew when to mollify his insecurity and when to tell him to grow up, was just what he needed.

Ben was still looking sour, however. His arms were folded and he had a scowl on his face. "Well let's see if Mr. Superhero can stand his little boo-boo, shall we?"he said crossly. "Gordon, I need you to remove that armor section. Your suit comes off in pieces, right?"Gordon nodded, and unlatched the lambda breastplate on his front. Underneath it were the power button and charging vents that he used to refill the HEV suit's energy and his own health, along with a tiny compartment, no more than a few cubic inches, really, where he sometimes stowed small things he needed to carry.

Now he shut off the suit's power, and it cooed at him, "Shutting down…Have a nice day."

"We need to remove the armor piece along with the flechette first, since it's lodged in there so tight," Ben explained, his face betraying that he was still cross from Alyx's defense of Gordon. "After we get the armor off, I can pry the flechette out and you can fix his arm."

Gordon used his left hand to remove the suit piece on his right arm. The piece connected firmly to the torso piece by cable locks on his shoulder, so he flipped those open and then did the same with the ones on his elbow and wrist. The entire arm had to come off to get the upper arm section off so it took a minute for him to completely expose his right arm. He did so by gently, gently lifting the upper arm piece away from his arm so he could take the flechette out of his skin with it, and when he did, he handed the armor over to Ben, wondering if he really needed the medic's help for this, and Alyx came over to inspect his arm. Blood was seeping out of it slowly, with the flechette removed, but it was nothing major at all, although it did look a little purple around the edges.

Ben, who had already removed the flechette, moved over to join Alyx in looking at Gordon's arm.

"Yeah, that barely went in at all, you were lucky," the medic said—looking sulky that the damage was so minor, Gordon noticed. "But the important thing is that these new flechettes use nanotechnology. They have what we're calling _micro-blades_ on them."

"Those are those little things?"Alyx pointed at the flechette in Ben's gloved hand, careful not to touch it.

"Actually, no," Ben said. She had been pointing to the tiny, millimeter-long protrusions that looked like fishhooks on the blade. "Those, we're calling _mini_-blades. The _micro_-blades are on them. Basically, the Combine have found a way to—how do I say this—purposely degrade metal _while_ manufacturing it. These flechettes are essentially rusty, but without the orange growth that comes from oxidization, just the degradation of the metal. Which means the edge of the blades are ragged on a microscopic level. It creates more tissue damage that way, and if hero-boy here hadn't had his magical suit—which, by the way, this arm of it is going to need to be repaired—he'd be in some serious pain right now. Some of the guys outside got these things buried in their muscle tissue. One even has one penetrating his lung."

Alyx put her hands to her face in a wince of horror. Gordon couldn't believe how lucky he'd been. The blade had basically just poked his skin, and had probably only pierced it because of the structure of the blade.

"Fortunately, they're not coated in anything or secreting any chemicals, like some the Combine have tried out; they just tear you up. We've come up with a way of dealing with it this morning."He went to a cabinet in the room from whence he pulled down three different bottles, and then extracted a fistful of cotton balls and a swab from his own apron pockets.

"Alyx, you need to first stop his bleeding by putting this on him. It's just ordinary peroxide. Then I want you to put this mixture on it. We'd been using it to repair tissue and cellular damage from energy pellet shots, but we've found it works well on these wounds too at repairing the damage. Give him a generous swab of that and let it sink into the tissue for about five minutes. After that, just swab this iodine on his arm, and get it all over the wound. Then bandage him up. Bandages are in that drawer—what he hasn't used up already."He handed the three bottles to Alyx and pointed at the relevant drawer.

"So peroxide, this stuff, then iodine and a bandage, right?"Alyx double-checked.

"You got it, sweet stuff," he replied giving her a wink. Alyx resisted rolling her eyes. He said to Gordon, "By the way, I'll drop this arm off in the workshop to get it worked on. No need to thank me, and I'm sure no one will. Your suit'll need to be charged up, though. Try not to forget that."Turning to Alyx again, he said, "Take care, I know you've got the situation in hand," and exited the room, adding, "…if Captain Science over there doesn't try to stop you to add to his collection of trophy-scars. Bet you think the ladies love that, dontcha?"he smirked with a sarcastic look at Gordon. Gordon gently pushed his glasses up his nose again, this time holding his middle finger a little more prominently than usual."Bye, Ben," he said.

Ben poked his head back in the door as if he'd forgotten something. "By the way, Alyx, you doing anything Friday night? I just scrounged a copy of Mortal Kombat for my Sega Genesis."He laid a slight emphasis on the last two words as if they were guaranteed woman-bait.

"No thanks, Ben,"Alyx smiled tolerantly.

Ben sighed dramatically."When are you going to stop playing hard-to-get on me?"He seemed to mean it, and Gordon bit his tongue to hold back his snort; he knew Alyx to definitely NOT be a person who played hard-to-get, in his personal experience.

Alyx sighed and smiled, "Someday, Ben!"


	2. Alyx

When Ben left the room, she muttered, "…someday I'm going to get fed up with him and let him know I'm not one of his videogame chicks," then mimicked strangling herself to end it all. Gordon chortled and said, "Except for the part where you'll give him a one-hit KO?"She chuckled and said, "Exactly."

She opened the bottle of peroxide and began dressing his wound. Gordon winced out loud as the stinging liquid bubbled on his skin. Alyx gently wafted air on it to ease the discomfort, then said, "You wuss,"at his reaction, while giving him her teasing smile. He breathed a soft laugh and then said, "Thanks for fending him off for me."

"Believe me,"Alyx said, "I don't mind putting him in his place. Sometimes I fantasize about taking that old Game-thing of his and hiding it in a headcrab nest. Is your arm still stinging?"On Gordon's nod, she added, "I'll rub the skin around it to draw the blood away when I'm done, that should help. Hold still, now."

"Seriously, though, it's good we took out those Hunters so close to the mine; if there are civilians in there, they might have been after them."

"Mm,"Gordon murmured, as was his wont, and Alyx kept talking as she bandaged him up. She was used to this by now: Gordon was generally a quiet person, but silence made Alyx uncomfortable, so she often talked just to fill the silence. She did it knowing she'd get little response out of Gordon and he didn't seem to mind it...although she got the feeling he wasn't always paying attention. It was kind of rude, but Alyx understood from the other survivors of Black Mesa that he hadn't always been like this. He had a lot to deal with now, and she guessed that that had something to do with it. She knew distraction was a sign of PTSD, and it made her worry about him. But there was no psychologist at this base since had been attacked by a headcrab zombie—an occupational hazard unique to practicing psychiatry for a rebel clientele—and in any case, Gordon was never in one place long enough for the long-term treatment Alyx was sure he needed.

She was learning to pick up on the difference between his normal lack of response and his not-paying-attention silences and knew that this was one of the latter, so she petered off and began humming to herself. She could see he was lost in thought, a troubled look on his face, and wasn't even sure he was aware of her.

Sometimes she wondered what went through that impressive brain of his...but sometimes she thought she'd rather not know. Gordon had some major guilt issues dealing with Black Mesa, and she knew he was a thinker at heart, not a fighter. Whenever they came across old bodies lying around from some fight or another, he always made a point of closing their eyes so the corpses weren't staring into space. The first time Alyx had seen him do it, it had surprised her—everyone else had learned to treat corpses as merely a warning of possible danger, but Gordon didn't seem desensitized to them yet. That had struck Alyx as odd; hadn't he been fighting for over 20 years?

But no, he seemed shocked at the harsh world around him, and often didn't know basic things about the current world that others took for granted. This, along with the fact that he seemed to not be a day over 27, and still made frequent reference to the pre-Combine world, made her think something had happened to...pause and restart time for him somehow, as bizarre as that sounded. She had heard the scientists left over from Black Mesa talking about it and they mostly suspected something to do with the Theory of Relativity; the last time anyone had seen him had been when he teleported off to Xen after the Resonance Cascade—when she had been _five years old_. The other theories ranged from memory loss due to extreme traumatic shock to ideas that he had been playing around with some sort of anti-aging technology, but Gordon himself never answered questions when asked about this. Her father had told Alyx that Gordon had always kept to himself and been laconic, but Alyx sensed that for some reason he really wanted to tell people the answers to these mysteries, but somehow couldn't.

It frustrated her. Alyx had taken it upon herself to watch out for the young scientist-turned-messiah, since he seemed to need it so badly and wasn't good at doing so himself, and she wanted to know what made him tick. She wanted to know everything there was to know about him...but he kept himself so closed-up. He was protecting himself, Alyx knew...but from what? She stole a glance at him out of the corner of her eye. He was staring into space with a deeply troubled expression, but she knew that if she asked him about it, he'd just push his glasses up his face and say, "Nothing."She sighed in frustration, and went back to his wound, which was now fully bandaged. She stroked his still-exposed arm gently, thinking about how she was surely the closest person to him—apart from Barney, maybe—and he clearly trusted her more than almost anyone else...and yet he still had his guard up sometimes.

Alyx glared at his arm where her hand was. She had to admit, she was attracted to him—very attracted to him—and she wasn't sure about his feelings toward her. Sometimes he seemed so grateful to have her around, but he clearly guarded against reciprocating her overtures. And she was perfectly clear about her feelings—at least according to everyone who saw them together—so clearly it wasn't that he was oblivious. He was holding back. But if it was holding back because he wasn't interested, or holding-back despite himself...that was what bothered her. She sighed again.

She wanted to be with him, and badly.

He seemed to be able to do anything he tried, no matter how impossible, and even if he doubted himself, he'd try. He was one of the most determined people she'd ever met, and he never complained about the unenviable situation he was in, although she wouldn't have blamed him if he did. He never asked for a lot and was always looking out for others, just trying to get the job done.

And he was a genius—not just academically, although she'd heard the other scientists speak about his PhD dissertation in awe—but in practical matters as well. He came up with ways to get them out of tight fixes that no one else would have thought of, and no problem he approached held up against him for very long.

He was sweet, if a little shy. He didn't seem to open up easily, but he had done so for her—mostly. She knew he trusted her and felt she could trust him. He was modest, despite his numerous gifts of skill, and she had seen him show concern for people he didn't even know, even putting himself in physical danger to help people he'd just met. She had once seen him be sent flying and nearly blown up by a grenade while trying to provide cover for some civilians in City 17 to escape a no-man's land in the middle of a firefight between some rebels and a unit of Combine soldiers. When she had asked him why he'd done it, he'd looked surprised and said, "Somebody had to."

And he seemed grateful for her friendship. He laughed at her corny humor even when no one else did, and seemed to genuinely enjoy it. They worked well together as a team—like they had some kind of combat chemistry. He gave her respect as a fighter, but she had seen him go into an offensive overdrive if she took a hit. Then his eyes would darken and he'd grit and bare his teeth or grimace in what almost looked like an angry pout and pump lead into the air, sending their enemies flying. He radiated power at those times, and she saw the effect it had on his opponents; at times like that she was proud to have him on their side, and awed at his brute skill.

But after the fight, he'd go back to being the nerd who was surprised at what he was capable of. He'd wipe his brow and double over, catching his breath, ask her if she was okay, and then Alyx would crack a joke about how good a fighter he was, and he'd smile.

That smile was worth gold to Alyx. He normally only gave a small smile, a curving upwards of the corners of his mouth, when responding to most things that would normally evoke a smile, but when he smiled more broadly...he looked_ handsome_. He appeared unassuming otherwise, but when he was smiling...Alyx always _loved _it when she could get one of those responses out of him. Her heart would flutter in her chest and she'd feel a surge of...being-alive-ness, for want of a better word. He gave those smiles most often when he was around her, and it made her feel good to know she could evoke that reaction she prized so much in him.

And his eyes. The women on the base seemed to lose interest in him fairly quickly after meeting him, since he was so quiet, but they all commented, nonetheless, on his eyes. Alyx had never seen anyone with irises so bright green, and although they were hidden behind his glasses and his eyelids tended to hang low over his eyes by default, giving him an always-sleepy expression, they were very expressive. They seemed to relay his thoughts directly rather than him having to tell his facial muscles to move, and they did so so eloquently that it didn't matter that he was so tight-lipped; she often knew his thoughts without him saying anything. Someday she'd love to just stare into them—not to steal stealthy, brief glances at them when he wasn't looking, but just gaze into them, drink them in all she wanted—and see what response they'd show to it. Would they smile at her, they way they often did seemingly without the help of his mouth? Would they look sad and wistful? Frustrated? Or would he revel in the connection like she would...?

The thought made her gloomy with unrequited longing, and it was maddening.

Maybe now was a good time to say something to him. But the thought made her stomach squirm in nervousness._ Just tell him that, what you just thought, all of it_, a voice in her brain urged her._ Do it. Do it now_. She gulped, and tried to plan how to say it—

—but then she realized she was staring at his arm while stroking it slowly, and that she had been feeling the muscles underneath his skin as she thought.

She froze.

And then realized that Gordon was frozen too.

She glanced at him and saw that he was looking at her, completely baffled, his eyebrows raised gently in a surprised expression.

Her mouth went dry and she yanked her hand away.

She averted her gaze from him, frantically tried to find something else to look at, fumbled with her hands, what should she do with them, should she—she ran one through her hair, gazed at her feet…

_Oh God. What do I say? There was no way he didn't see my face, he knows __just__ what I was thinking—quick, Alyx, think of something to say! Anything!_

Her panicked brain fumbled desperately for something to vocalize, anything, even something stupid would be fine, as long as she didn't die of embarrassment right now…she felt the blood rising furiously in her face, and knew she was doomed, he could see it, there was no explaining her way out of it…

And then he said, haltingly, softly, sounding like he was struggling to get the words out as much as she was, "You…you could…keep doing that…if you wanted."

It took a second for her brain to pull meaning from the sounds, and then she looked up at him in surprise. His face was turned away from her, his eyes flicking back and forth between the tiles on the floor, his mouth open as if he were trying to find something to say. She realized he had tossed her a lifeline and she grabbed it. Looking at his arm, she determined not to think about it or else she'd lose her nerve, and reached out her hand, quivering with nerves, and gently brushed his arm again.

It was just a superficial stroke of the surface of his skin, but he let out his breath like the touch had broken some prohibition against it, and she realized both of them had been holding their breath. She let hers out slowly, trying to steady herself with it, and focused on his arm, since looking at his face—never mind _saying_ something—seemed too much for her just this moment.

_Okay, now what do I do?_ she thought. Should she say something? Gordon seemed to be just enjoying the touch…and she was beginning to see that there was no reason she shouldn't either. She let herself savor the contact, and tried not to think about meeting, or having, any expectations.

She stroked his upper arm gently. He was surprisingly muscular. Somehow she had never thought of him as having a nice body—except for his face, of course—but then again, Alyx reminded herself, she rarely saw this much of him. He tended to keep covered up, but whether it was for a reason, Alyx didn't know. Most of the time she was around him, he was in his HEV suit, which was hugely bulky and allowed no glimpse of his shape or of his skin anywhere lower than a turtleneck might show. When he wasn't in that, he was often in a long-sleeved lab coat or civvies, although Alyx had seen him a few times in what she supposed he normally wore when he wasn't working prior to Black Mesa. He tended to always wear long sleeved shirts that buttoned up at the front, often, but not always, with some kind of plaid design. To Alyx, it looked somehow very typical of a Seattle native, which he was. _Or a nerdy scientist-lumberjack_, she'd thought with a giggle.

She wanted to ask him about it, ask him about his life before he knew her, what he'd been like as a kid…

…_and this is the perfect opportunity_, some devious part of her brain told her. She looked at him for the first time since she'd put her hand back on his arm, surreptitiously. His eyes were closed, and his expression was blank.

_What am I supposed to do,_ Alyx argued with herself,_ turn this into some baring-of-souls thing where I ask him his life story? I'm not some massage therapist!_

Besides, she was still too nervous to say anything. She decided to just stay quiet and focused on his arm.

He was by no means buff—he had just enough muscle that she was surprised she hadn't noticed it—but now she realized that he was doing as much physical work as the other men on the base. Maybe even more. It occurred to her that swinging a crowbar all the time had to be good for these particular muscles. She stifled a laugh, in case Gordon took it the wrong way. She didn't feel like explaining that she was pondering how he'd gotten these arms.

His skin was surprisingly pale, she noticed, paler than it looked like it should be according to his face. He plainly didn't get enough exposure to the sun. Well, with the HEV suit and being indoors or covered up so often, it wasn't surprising he should be so pale, but it made him look…somehow vulnerable. She ran her fingers gently along his skin, as if it were fragile. His muscles were clenched somewhat, out of awkwardness or discomfort, but she could feel them slowly,_ slowly_ unclenching under her touch. Alyx realized with a thrill that he was allowing her, even if just physically, to see more of him than he'd been letting her do so until now; the realization was heady and made her determined to let him know it was okay, he could trust her.

_Besides_, she thought wryly,_ I'll probably never get to do this again. Best thing to do is savor it as much as I can._

Now she used more of her fingers than just the tips, as she had been, to caress his arm. There was a clenching feeling in her chest as she thought that this man, this man who she cared about so deeply and who, for whatever reason, had been disallowing himself from reciprocating her feelings, was finally letting his walls down enough to let her have this contact with him. She applied a gentle pressure from her fingers on his flesh; the thought made her want to hug him, but she knew this would have to suffice.

Her emotion finally overcame her awkwardness, and she glanced at his face. His eyes were shut tightly, but his eyebrows were slightly peaked upward and together. She wasn't sure what he was feeling, but the expression threw her; it was so...unguarded. She was used to his face being emotive, but she had thought it relied on his eyes, which were closed right now. Still, his face conveyed emotion with such strength so subtly—but the expression was a frustrating cipher. He was feeling something very strongly, but she wasn't sure what.

It occurred to her that she could ask him...she swallowed, steeling herself to do so...and then realized she might break the spell that seemed to have been cast between them. The current lack of speech between them, she realized, was what was enabling this...this momentary connection, whatever it was. It dawned on her that maybe she had been communicating with him all wrong all along. She liked to talk; he was sparse with his words. She had been trying to get him to talk to her about the things on his mind, as came so freely to her, but Gordon's style was different. She began to theorize now that he could put up barriers to people's spoken attempts to communicate with him, but the element of touch seemed to work on a more basic, universal level, one he was struggling to resist. And maybe, didn't want to.

She used both of her hands, now, to touch and caress him, and explored his arm more thoroughly. Her right hand was on the inside of his bicep, the vulnerable flesh softer than the outside of it, and her left hand on the firm muscle on the outside. The touch of warm male musculature under her hand made an instinctive part of her bubble to the surface, manifesting in a heat in her body that made it seem as if the air conditioning in the building had suddenly been cut off. She was aware of the instinct almost instantly and made a conscious effort to rein it in...but it was drawing her attention to his shoulder. His rounded, solid, clearly-defined shoulder that was exposed from the suit, but which connected to the end of his clavicle, which disappeared tauntingly under the rest of his armor. It was just enough to be mesmerizing—absolutely mesmerizing.

Alyx's favorite part of the male physique, uninterestingly enough, was the arms, shoulders and neck, and the places they connected, and nothing was so visually stimulating as a small glimpse of skin that was normally not seen and then only allowed to be visible in a small amount; when the rest was normally covered up, even a glimpse of parts of the body not normally considered erotic could be tantalizing, and let the imagination do the rest. Alyx found she was breathing more heavily now, but thank God, not loud enough or in a way that would give her away. She tried to dial back the feel of molten liquid churning in her core, and glanced again at Gordon, wondering, hoping he was having a similar reaction.

Instead, she was shocked to see he looked close to crying. It was enough of a buzzkill to be equivalent to having a bucket of cold water thrown on her, and she immediately lost the warm, slow, disintigrating-around-the-edges feeling that had been filling her physical being. It was replaced by a jolt of shame and mortification; here she was wanting to tear the rest of the HEV suit off of him and pull him on top of her, while he was clearly having some other, emotional reaction. She swallowed and breathed in steadying breaths of the cool medic bay air, with its smells of sharp chemicals, dampness and human blood, to return herself to her senses.

She studied his face more closely now. His eyes were crumpled shut, and he was breathing deliberately, but his back was still upright, although slumped slightly over himself. She delicately touched his arm right under the crook of his elbow in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture, and let it trail down his forearm further to his wrist before repeating the circuit. At this, he leaned his head back and upward, swallowing, as if the gesture had had just the effect she was hoping for. She turned her gaze back to his arm and ran both her hands up and down the length of it, slowly, letting him feel the gentleness of the caresses. He exhaled a small sigh and slumped his head slightly forward again, rotating his arm to show the sensitive inside of his arm. She used her right hand to trace the veins in his forearm and stroked the hairs of it with her left, gently seeking out each individual follicle as best she could in a move that was almost like grooming.

All the while, she could feel him still going ever more and more limp under her touch. She knew the gesture of rotating his arm to present her with the underside of it was an explicit acknowledgement—or as explicit as she had a feeling she'd get—that he was making himself vulnerable to her. The veins and more sensitive, vital parts of his arm were on the underside, and exposing them gave him the payoff of being able to feel her touch on the more tender nerve receptors there, she knew, but was also a show of physical vulnerability and trust. Knowing this, she paused the fingers of her left hand over the major artery in the crook of his elbow, gently feeling the pulse. It beat strongly at her, but sluggishly, indicating the state of ease his body derived from her tactile explorations._ Touch therapy_, she thought wryly, surprised that the side of her mind that cracked jokes was still responding, even now.

She had heard about "the healing power of touch", as people often put it, but while she knew that human beings, as a social species, biologically benefitted from physical contact with others, she had thought the phrase went a little too far and was flaky. But it seemed to be holding true in this case; she had no idea what was going through Gordon's head, but it was good for him, she was somehow sure of that.

She now let her fingertips draw slowly down to his wrist—what she knew to be a spot people protected if they were feeling emotionally unsafe—and was rewarded by his gesture of enjoyment, as he flexed his fingers wider open, ever so slightly, haltingly with the minuteness of the muscle work. He seemed to be holding his most recent inhalation, letting it out only partially with each exhalation that was followed by another small intake of breath, but never letting all the air in his lungs out at once. He was waiting, anticipating something.

A sudden idea took hold of Alyx, and her eyes fixed on his open palm. She had never taken the time to really notice his hands before, she now realized with surprise; when they weren't gloved, she often just wasn't paying attention to them. But now she noted the softness of his fingers, yet their masculine shape, and the shine of thin lines of sweat forming in the creases in his palms. He was a scientist by nature, not a soldier; she knew he had most often used his hands for minute, detailed work in a laboratory or for writing papers or filling out reports in his past life, and they lacked the calluses or griminess of the other men on the base who fought. The skin of the underside of his hand was pale but somewhat pinkish, and there were none of the ever-present cuts or scars the mechanics she often worked with had. She imagined his fingers twiddling a dial to adjust the magnification of a microscope, or scribbling with a pencil on a clipboard. He had worked in Anomalous Materials at Black Mesa, she knew, handling dangerous chemicals and substances, but always with heavy protection to his body. She marveled at how soft the flesh was and her mind began to wander to how those fingers and this hand might feel to her if the roles right now were reversed...

The idea she'd been trying to push away—because it seemed too daring, far too daring for the delicate balance of sensation and emotion they were treading right now, lightly as a dance—the idea had nevertheless persisted, and now that she had pondered it for several moments, seemed more and more possible.

She held her breath. Edging her fingertips slightly forward at a time, ever so slightly, down his palm, she inched them a millimeter at a time toward the center of his palm. Her object was to hold his hand, and it seemed wildly forthcoming for all their interactions thus far. But he was letting her do it, and he was surely aware of her intention.

Finally, the tips of the index, middle, and ring fingers of her right hand rested in the center of his palm. And now, slowly, jerkingly, his fingers were closing toward hers. They snuck closer, a tiny jerk of a muscle at a time, almost enveloping her fingers...

The sounds of brisk, heavy steps toward the door of their examination room and male voices talking confidently made Alyx jerk upright from the waist and Gordon sit up stiffly straight with a jolt. Pulling her hand away from Gordon's, Alyx busied herself with the mess of cut bandages and sterile wrappers on the table next to them. The next second, Mike and Soeren, two of the medical staff, came into the room, talking in voices that Alyx knew were a normal level, but seemed unnervingly loud for some reason.

"Oh hey, Alyx, ! I didn't realize you two were here. Everything okay?"Mike inquired, completely oblivious to the interaction he and his co-worker had just interrupted. There was a millisecond's pause where Gordon didn't answer and Alyx realized that she normally would do the talking in this situation.

"Yeah, everything's just fine. Gordon got a flechette in his armor, but it didn't do any significant damage. Rodney and Ben wanted me to patch him up, since it was just a basic job and they couldn't spare anyone at the moment."Alyx had made the speech with her back turned to the two men, but forced herself to turn to greet them as she finished. The ease with which she seemed to have given an impression of normality surprised her.

"Oh good, nothing major then?"Mike went on. Alyx shook her head brightly,"Nope!"

"We just needed some syringes, and Rodney said there were some extras in here...let me get over to that cabinet..."Soeren squeezed past her, and she snuck a glance at Gordon, whose head was turned to the far wall with an expression of what could be frustration on his face.

Frustration at exactly what, she wasn't sure. Frustration they had been interrupted? Frustration with himself that he had let his walls down? But in any case, a second later the walls were back up; his shoulders were back and his back straight, his face composed into his default neutral, somewhat sleepy-looking countenance as he regarded the men with a look that suggested preparation for them to ask something of him.

Alyx gritted her teeth as undetectably as she could. There went that whole interaction out the window. Would he be on his guard more strongly from now on, to prevent it from happening again? Would he pretend it had never happened? Almost assuredly, they were both in for a bout of awkwardness in their interactions with each other for some time now. She didn't even let the part of her that wanted to hope he would try to repeat it get its hopes up, quashing it down with bitter resignation as she kept up her front for the two doctors.

"Thanks Alyx...take care, ,"Soeren said, moving out of the room with the package of needles clutched in his hands as Mike closed the door behind them. Neither of them looked back at the man and woman in the room as they departed, the pair's interaction before they had entered not even crossing their minds as they rushed to get on with the business of healing the injured.

The two were left alone in the room together again, and now the unavoidable awkwardness seized its first opportunity to sink in. The two were silent for a few seconds, Alyx bustling with the bandages and ointment bottles. But she was determined to prevent the awkwardness from having its way, and breaking it, said,"Gordon, I can clean up in here...why don't you go check on your suit?"

Neither of them looked at each other while she was speaking, and when he timidly sought out her gaze in a kind of reconnaissance of the psychological terrain, she refused to meet it. She saw, through her peripheral vision, him redirect his gaze downward and say,"..., okay."

He slid to his feet off the examination table, and stood there, rubbing his arm as if in thought. She moved to the back of the small room and began stowing the bottles in their respective cabinets.

"Hey Alyx?"he said lightly, although it made her start nonetheless

"Yeah?"She reflexively looked toward him. Their gaze met and held for a brief moment; and then he dodged his head down and away, and said casually, "Thanks."

He said it as if it were just meant for the patching-up job she'd done, but she knew better; he didn't have to thank her for that, and he knew it. Her response, though, was likewise calculated in tone for casualty:"No problem."

She went back to the bandages and wrappers, trying to look innocently busy. He seemed to hesitate, before moving to the door. She heard it open, and then close, and she was alone in the room. She sighed, her shoulders sagging as her front fell away. She looked toward the door, but of course it had a privacy screen over it and she couldn't see a sign of him. She leaned her head against the cabinet door. Somehow, she needed to catch her breath. And the tangle of emotions she was feeling right now...

_Could_ be feeling right now. She valiantly pushed them away, knowing that she'd deal with them in full later. She searched her mind for whatever she had been thinking about when they had come into the medic bay to fill their place...

...but just for a moment, she paused. She allowed herself to feel the full realization that she had just had the most intimate moment with Gordon, the closest thing to what she'd been longing for so desperately, that she'd yet had. It filled her up with a giddiness that made her want to giggle like a middle-schooler and dance around the room. She didn't, of course, but she allowed herself a smile.

Then, replacing it with her own default look of neutral chipperness, she went back to work.


	3. Gordon

Ben ducked out of the room and Alyx turned to Gordon, adding, "…someday I'm going to get fed up with him and let him know I'm not one of his videogame chicks."She mimicked strangling herself to end it all, and Gordon chortled.

"Except for the part where you'll give him a one-hit KO?"She chuckled appreciately,"Exactly."

She opened the bottle of peroxide and began dressing his wound. Gordon winced out loud as the stinging liquid bubbled on his skin. Alyx gently waved air on it from her hand to ease the discomfort, then said, "You wuss,"at his reaction, while giving him her teasing smile. He breathed a soft laugh and then said, "Thanks for fending him off for me."

"Believe me,"Alyx said, "I don't mind putting him in his place. Sometimes I fantasize about taking that old Game-thing of his and hiding it in a headcrab nest. Is your arm still stinging?"On Gordon's nod, she added, "I'll rub the skin around it to draw the blood away when I'm done, that should help. Hold still, now."

They chatted about the mission they'd been on as she daubed the various chemicals on him, and then she got out the bandages and started wrapping him up. Alyx prided herself on how good she was at wrapping bandages—she'd done it so often in her life—and while she thought it was something to be proud of, Gordon couldn't help but feel a little sad for her. It wasn't a skill too many people her age had in the world he had come from, thank God.

But here and now, it was a vital skill, and being good at it was an accomplishment. Gordon chuckled as he thought about that word, _accomplishment_. He had sat through a movie adaptation of _Pride and Prejudice_ in high school, trying to convince one of the girls watching it that he loved it—really, it was the most boring, insipid thing he'd ever watched and he didn't understand a lot of it—and now he recalled a dialogue some characters had about women being accomplished. The love interest in the movie had said the word was entirely overused and that he knew maybe four women who deserved it. The so-called accomplishments they talked about were things like singing and crocheting pillows. Gordon snuck a glance at Alyx, bandaging his wound, and wallowed in the irony. Alyx wouldn't be caught dead doing embroidery, but she was a whiz with computers and handy with a sniper rifle...and a shotgun...and a handgun. And of course, bandaging wounds.

She could hit a moving target with impressive accuracy, fight off a zombie with only her fists and legs, repair machines…and she was empathic, and warm, and never seemed daunted by any task set before her. Her sense of humor was cute and—

Watch it, Gordon, she's right next to you, a warning voice in his head said. Don't go thinking…dangerous thoughts.

He of course loved having Alyx as a friend, and he admired the crap out of her…but he had to resist letting it get too far. He had a job to focus on, and he couldn't get distracted or shift his priorities.

A melancholy air came over him. He would have liked to…to do what, exactly? Because he wasn't even thinking about being involved with her right now…no, that was out of the question. Alyx deserved someone who could give her the kind of relationship she deserved, someone she could walk hand-in-hand down the hallways of White Forest with, someone she could PDA with or call, "my boyfriend" and have people know exactly who she meant, someone…who could afford to return her feelings,dammit.

He couldn't give her those things. As long as this war was going on, and the G-Man had a hold over him, his life wasn't his own. Either one of them could die without a second's notice; Gordon had seen far too many meaningless deaths since Black Mesa for the fragility of life not to have sunk in. One moment you were here, talking with your friends, doing paperwork, illicitly watching a ballgame on a staffroom TV…the next…

…the next, the department next door to yours set off a resonance cascade and the building blew apart with you in it. You might have no warning that your life was about to be over. Your family and friends might not ever get an accurate story of how you had died, and that, coupled with the shock of the sudden loss, would leave them reeling.

And worse was the G-Man, Gordon's so-called "employer". Gordon doubted the man—if he was a man—had real human emotions. The grim-faced beaurocrat seemed to never care about emotion in his decisions, and often made heartless moves with other people's lives. Gordon could be plucked from this time and place at any moment, and wake up from stasis to find himself 200 years in the future, Alyx nowhere in sight. Yes, the G-Man "employed" Alyx as well, but Gordon knew it would be naïve to hope that they'd get paired together on their next "assignment"; the G-Man wasn't a third-grade teacher who assigned people to work with their friends, and Gordon suspected that the creepy representative of some unknown force would find separating them amusing.

And really, Gordon wanted anything other than for Alyx to fall into the G-Man's hands. He didn't know if the issue was up for debate—from his best understanding of what the G-Man had said while Alyx was healing in the mines, Gordon thought that maybe the G-Man was keeping Alyx off to the side for future use, and wasn't actively employing her yet—but he knew he'd do anything he could to prevent Alyx from being at the mercy of that cold, heartless…individual, as Gordon himself now was.

Plain and simple, Gordon couldn't be with Alyx. And that was why it was better that he not allow himself to admit to her these sneaky little emotions that threatened to completely override his logic and restraint.

Gordon was just thinking these thoughts when he realized Alyx had stopped talking a while ago, and looked over at her.

He froze.

Alyx was staring intently at his arm, a slightly glazed look on it, as she gently ran her fingers up and down the exposed length of his upper arm. He realized with a shock that she was admiring his musculature.

Gordon was amazed. Women didn't find him attractive. He was a nerd. And he'd always been a gangly, underfed-looking nerd…until, he admitted to himself, they had been required to keep in shape as part of the terms of employment at Black Mesa. That still hadn't been enough for him to not be stunned, the other day, when he had been inspecting a wound on his ribcage and was startled to see he had actually put on muscle since arriving in City a lot of muscle, of course—he didn't work out or anything—but always running and dodging and fighting for his survival had built up his body's strength, and now he wondered if he should explain that to Alyx.

But as he thought this, she pulled away from him as if his arm were burning metal. Her eyes wide and her mouth partially open, trying to explain, she quickly averted her eyes from him and ran her hand through her hair, stumbling for something to say to excuse the unmistakable meaning behind the gesture. Gordon felt mortified for having embarrassed her, and he too began to look for something to say. But he was distracted by the sudden notable absence, in his mind, of her hand on him.

How had he not noticed that?It had felt…it had felt good, actually. It occurred to Gordon just now that he'd been actually touched very little since arriving here. Or at least touched in a pleasant way—he was now used to being punched or struck, or else associating human hands with the uncomfortable vulnerability of being given medical treatment—and Alyx's tender gesture had awakened some instinct he couldn't quite put a name to yet. He told himself to resist—hadn't he just had a list of reasons a moment ago why he couldn't feel more than he did for her?—but that instinct was stronger, and as he looked at her burning face, he wanted to do anything to make her feel better.

So he said, haltingly, and in as distinct a voice as he could muster, "You…you could…keep doing that…if you wanted."Then he swallowed hugely and averted his eyes from her.

The ball was in her court now. And what if she said no? Now he'd stuck his neck out, and what if he looked like an idiot?He felt heat strong enough to cook an egg on rise in his face, and tried to think of something else to say—

—and then her hand was back on his arm, the pressure so gentle from the tips of her fingers that he involuntarily let out a small breath of relief.

He closed his eyes as he exhaled, opened them…and closed them again. He couldn't look her in the face somehow. But he could feel her fingers on his arm, and he realized all the muscles in the limb were slowly unclenching. Her fingers—from both hands now—travelled up and down his upper arm, gently feeling his bicep.

He should say something, he thought…but what? "That feels good?"Well, that would be idiotic. He found himself sighing again instead.

It did feel good, really. It felt _very _good. How long had it been since he'd felt the touch of a woman's hands on him? He thought about it...well, technically, it had been at least twenty years since anything had happened in his life at all, what with being in stasis, but even without counting that..._too long_, he decided,_ either way_.

Gordon had little experience with..._being physical_ with women. He had had only two _encounters_ previously, each of them with different women because neither of them had come back for more. He had tried not to think too much about it; women weren't interested in him, at least not on a superficial, I-wanna-bang-that-guy level, and really, his academic career had been his focus for most of his life up until Black Mesa. It had been all-consuming, really. He'd just been starting to develop a life outside of work or academia when the Event had happened. He'd never really had a meaningful relationship with a woman, and hadn't really thought seriously about wanting one.

Alyx, though...she was a different matter. He wanted to spend as much time with her as he could, and couldn't envision getting sick of it. He wanted to mean something to her, something significant. He wanted to be someone with a special place in her life, so that years from now, if he were to die or be re-assigned somewhere else by the G-Man, she'd always remember him and think fondly of him.

But he knew that couldn't be the case. Maybe she'd think fondly of him, but it would be bittersweet; there'd be loss there too. He didn't want Alyx's thoughts of him marred by that, or by anything, really.

If he could, he'd be anything she wanted him to be. No woman had ever made him...want to be a man, so much. But he knew he could only offer her a limited amount of what he wanted to give her. And that wasn't her...or to him, he thought wryly, being completely honest with himself. He wanted the full experience of being her significant other—keyword:"significant"—and doubted he could hold back as much as was wise. Anything he got into with her would be a major commitment, and while it was one he was eager to make, actually, he knew it could only end badly and would just leave them both hurt and unsatisfied in some way.

And so he held back. And it killed him to do that to her. She had every right not to be strung along like this, as much as he tried not to; somehow he was sending her little signals that encouraged her to keep at it. And while he loved it, loved having the attention from someone like Alyx, who could have any man she wanted...that was just the thing. She was wasting her time, when any number of men would love to be with her as much as he would, and some of them might even make her happy.

He felt something like a painful punch in his chest at the thought. She could have her pick of men (and from what he'd seen, of women too, although she obviously didn't care about that), and the one man she wanted couldn't reciprocate her gestures, as much as he wanted to. It was the opportunity of a lifetime for him, and he wanted more than anything to take it...and instead he had to cause her this confusion and frustration. He hoped to God she didn't resent him for it, and wished he could explain it to her...but that would involve revealing his "employer", and apart from the fact that Gordon was sure no one wanted their mind blown in that way, he also got the distinct impression, although the G-Man had never actually said as much, that part of the terms of the G-Man's patronage was that Gordon keep it a secret. He didn't know what might happen if he tried to reveal it to Alyx—likely Gordon would be killed, he had a suspicion—and another complication was that he was afraid that revealing his alliance with the G-Man would make the creepy executive reveal to Alyx her obligation to him. Leaving her in the dark might be postponing the day when she'd have to live the same way Gordon did, always under the G-Man's tyrannical thumb, and if he could do anything to protect her from that, by God, he'd do it in a heartbeat.

Even if it meant denying them both what they wanted so badly it kept him awake at night with thoughts of nothing but an image of her face smiling at him.

That was all it took for him. One thought of that smile and the way it would reach to her amber eyes—those beautiful, gorgeous amber eyes-and the idea that it was directed at him...it was enough to form a powerful aching in his chest that hurt in a way that was beyond physical, and yet was something he wouldn't give up for the life of him.

At times like that, lying in the dark in the middle of the night, when everything in one's mind seemed magnified by ten, he thought he wouldn't mind being stuck with her for life. If it were just him and her and he could know that no one else would have a chance at her, and she wouldn't want it anyway...people his age were married, he knew. He had gone to weddings of friends back when he was still working on his Master's at idea that people as young as him would want to cordon themselves off to one person for the rest of their lives had seemed strange to him at the time...but then again, he had never had any significant relationship with another like that, not even close to it. Now he had an idea of what it was like, and while he knew that day was a ways off for him—even in a perfect world where he wasn't bound to some psychopath with a briefcase and the entire world didn't think he was Jesus of Nazareth with a PhD—in the wee small hours of the morning, when the mind worked differently than it did during the day, he understood the feeling. In the morning he'd feel stupid, and his first sight of Alyx for the day would leave him mortified and grateful that she didn't have to know the workings of his inner mind. Then he'd put up his resistance again, the careful wall he had to maintain against those feelings for her, and except for a few moments each day—moments which were growing ever more in number and frequency, he had to admit—he was able to keep the walls up, if he put up a decent effort. Of course, at night, the walls crumbled and he went through the cycle all over again.

He sighed miserably. She was stroking his arm so gently, the tactile sensation was like water for a parched throat. His walls were down now, he knew...but his mind, which was normally a master-work of restraint and responsibility, didn't care right now, such was his need for her contact. It wasn't even panicking that he'd let down his defenses, or that she definitely knew it...it was too exhausted from putting up the front and denying itself, and welcomed her, welcomed how she seemed to want to take care of him in some way.

He needed her to, he knew that; he had been allowing her to do so in some small ways, for his own good, because he knew he wasn't good at it himself and that if it wasn't done, he was no good to the Resistance. But now he let her do it because, quite frankly, he needed _her_.

And he knew he wasn't just denying himself. He was denying her what she wanted as well, and that pained him. He saw her disappointment when he put his front back up after it had slipped, and while his instinct was to apologize or reach out to her, that was exactly the opposite of what he needed to do. Then he'd hate himself, and sink into a depressed mood until something lifted him out of it, while trying not to let Alyx see. Because she didn't need to deal with that from him as well.

That was when the emotional walls came in handy. Except for when his walls were weak, and then they both had to suffer for his denying her.

Like he was now.

Well, he thought, at least he could let her have this one moment. He hoped it meant something for her, something good, because it was all he could afford to give. He knew that when they left this room, he'd have to put his front up again—and that this time, it would take a monumental effort to do so—and they would both pretend it hadn't happened. He would have to be on his guard even more carefully for a while afterwards. Better enjoy it while he could.

Alyx was caressing him with both hands now, as if she were fascinated with this uninteresting part of his body. He thought of opening his eyes to gauge her thoughts...and then thought better of it.

_Which is code for, "You're chicken", isn't it?_ he chided himself. Still, he couldn't bring himself to do it. It struck him just how much he was trusting her, as he felt his muscles still slowly unclenching, ever more and more. With each second, he could feel more and more of the pressure coming off of his mind and reflecting in his body, and for a moment, he tried to simply not think and just be, with nothing occupying his thoughts but the touch on his arm.

This was pleasant—his mind free of anything but this physical contact—and he drifted in it, allowing his mind to flow without words. Gradually, he began to be aware of...something...he wasn't sure what...like a dam swelling and about to break, within him. He had an inkling what it was, but knew that regardless, if it broke...

...he couldn't let it break. Especially in front of Alyx. Somehow he knew this, without being sure what the pressure was. He focused his breathing, keeping it steady and rhythmic, deliberate and something he could grasp a hold of to keep him anchored.

Then he felt Alyx touch the inner crook of his arm.

Strange, how such an innocent touch could make him so ecstatic, as if the physical sensations he might have in a sexual encounter were translated into pure emotion. As Alyx drew her hand down his forearm, he repressed a shiver and wondered why he was suddenly feeling as if he were naked in front of her. Normally such an idea would embarrass him, but he felt safe with Alyx being the one doing the exposing.

Some part of his thought that was getting lost in the current of his mind was aware that he was completely in her power, she held him in the palm of her hand—quite literally—and far from it being uncomfortable, he was reveling in it. Her face and name filled his mind, and he leaned his head back, basking in them, basking in the strange, wordless realm of raw, unfiltered emotion his mind was in, as if it were sunlight on a beach.

He swallowed, steadying himself, realizing what he was doing. She was tracing the follicles of the hairs on his arm, and that specific, concrete feeling brought him back, out of the unfamiliar realm he'd been floating in and into the physical, tangible world where things could be expressed in terms of everyday vocabulary. He was aware of himself again, and of the physical presence of Alyx, as opposed to the reflected form of her he'd just been holding in his mind. She was feeling his pulse, as if enjoying the reassurance that he was perfectly and highly alive, and he let her observe his lifeforce, willing her to know that in this moment, it was revolving around her.

She drew her fingertips down to his wrist now, the inside of his wrist where it was sensitive and vital. He reacted instinctively, without having to will it, by letting his hand slowly, slowly open under the touch, and knew that this was his body's way of telling her he trusted her. His defenses were completely gone now, no pretense of his walls remaining. One of those parts of his brain that was normally dominant but was now pushed into a corner let him know in a tiny voice of this fact and that he'd suffer in some way for it afterward...but the little voice was so tiny and meaningless to the part of him that was in charge right now that it was instantly forgotten. He realized his breathing was restricted, each breath a small addition to the air being hoarded in his lungs or trimming of the used portion thereof. The part of him that normally monitored his behavior wasn't interested at the moment, though, because it was wondering if maybe he should open his eyes, or say something to her...or kiss her...

But now she was edging her fingers into the palm of his hand, a millimeter at a time. The touch alone was wonderful enough, but he knew what was on her mind, and when her fingertips had all come to a shaky rest in the center of his hand, he edged his fingers closer to them. His mind wasn't thinking right now of G-Men and intergalactic wars and the terrifying job he had to do; it had regressed to when it was 13 years old and trying to get the courage up to hold a girl's hand, rallying itself onwards as if this were a Herculean feat... he could feel his heart pounding in his chest and his blood pulsing through his veins...his fingers were halfway closed over hers now, and hers were shaky with anticipation and her own nerves...

He was aware of footsteps and Alyx snapped her hand away. His eyes jolted open, adrenaline shooting through him suddenly, wondering if the Combine were charging in on them...

...And he was in a doctor's examination room, the arm of his HEV suit off, and Alyx busying herself with noisy wrappers.

Oh.

Oh.

There was a world. A world at all, and it wasn't just him floating in his own weird subconscious-land, and it didn't consist of just him and her linked by some magical connection, and it wasn't confined to this...doctor's room.

Why was he in a doctor's room again? Oh.

Right.

Reality took a few moments to take hold again, and by the time it had, the owners of the footsteps he'd heard had entered the room; his sympathetic nervous system was glad to see the noise was not, as it had initially believed, someone trying to kill them, but Mike and Soeren, two of the medical staff, and they were saying something to Alyx...She began talking and his attention snapped back to his surroundings.

"...Gordon got a flechette in his armor, but it didn't do any significant damage. Rodney and Ben wanted me to patch him up, since it was just a basic job and they couldn't spare anyone at the moment,"Alyx said, and bravely turned around to smile at the men. Gordon was impressed with how quickly she could put on an innocent face, and hurriedly tried to make sure his mind was where it needed to be._Yep,all set_, it told him, and went back to the man called Mike, who was chatting with Alyx.

Gordon realized they weren't here to talk, however, and due to his normal lack of speech they were talking only to Alyx. He took the moment to catch his breath, rallying himself, because he knew that in a moment, he'd be alone in the room again with Alyx. Bitterness rose up in his as he realized...what, specifically? He was annoyed with himself, but for what? Well, that was irrational.

_So many reasons_, he answered himself, and bizarrely enough, they were conflicting with each other. Part of him was frustrated they'd been interrupted, another was annoyed he hadn't done anything, and a third was his defensive self coming back in full strength to tell him off for letting his walls down so completely and utterly. He glared at the tiles on the floor, but knew he'd have to sort through this later; he pushed it all aside, put his walls back in place—with a small amount of ruefulness, he was aware—and composed his face to show no trace of...whatever the heck had just happened.

"Thanks Alyx...take care, ,"the man called Soeren said, and he and his co-worker marched out of the room carrying what Gordon supposed was the medical supplies that they had come in here for. Gordon was mildly disappointed he wouldn't have time to get his walls back up and running thoroughly by talking to them, but now he had to figure out how to interact with Alyx.

Then they were alone, and the awkward silence set in. Gordon was aware of it the way one is aware of the sun while being unable to escape a sunburn. It stretched on for agonizing seconds, and he could feel each fraction of a second acutely as he struggled to think of what to say. Alyx, however, bailed him out, and he envisioned a Renaissance-style painting of a saint with Alyx's face mentally Photoshopped over it:"Gordon, I can clean up in here...why don't you go check on your suit?"

Gordon wanted to compose hymns in her name, and wryly thought to himself,_ Alyx Vance, patron saint of socially-crippled nerds_. He steeled himself and snuck a peek at her face, trying to feel out the terrain...but she either didn't see him or wouldn't look at him. That was fine, he admitted to himself, because he wasn't sure what he'd do if she were to return his gaze.

"..., okay," he managed to say, and pushed himself to his feet. As his feet hit the floor he felt strangely aware of the sensation of the impact on his soles, and the blood rushing back into his legs where it had petered off from them being dangling over the table ledge. He was momentarily amused to think that maybe all of the blood in his body, even all his neurological awareness of his entire physical self, had been concentrated in the foot-and-a-half or so of space that his arm took up. He let the circulation return to his body in full, and used the moment to figure out what to do next. Because there was no way he was just leaving without saying something.

He realized he was rubbing his arm as he thought, as if trying to catch some lingering essence of her there, and developed a strategy that would have seemed brilliant to his flustered self in middle school. Speaking in a voice calculated for the perfect balance between casual and not-too-casual, he said, "Hey Alyx?"She responded before he could freak out while waiting for her to respond, "Yeah?"

_Do it, Freeman, _he growled at himself, and brought his eyes to meet hers. She looked like he felt; like she was struggling to regain and maintain her composure. He wondered if, if he tried hard enough, he could somehow telepathically let her know how grateful he was to her. His mind, doubting its initial plan, floundered, trying to find words to express the mess of emotions he was feeling toward her: gratitude, apology, awkwardness, a feeling he knew the word for but wouldn't think...

...And then he chickened out and went back to his original plan. Ducking his head away from her—because looking her in the eye was taking such a monumental effort—he murmured, in as distinct a voice as he could muster, "Thanks."The word hung in the air, and he desperately hoped she would know he wasn't merely thanking her for the bandaging job.

But she said, "No problem," and the way she studiously avoided his face convinced even his raging self-doubt that she knew what he was thanking her for. He felt a rush of relief at knowing she had met him halfway.

He hesitated now, wondering what came next. Should he say any more, any of the mountain of things he wanted to say? Explain to her why he had his defenses up against her, and that he'd have to keep them up even higher now, so please would she not be hurt if this didn't happen again? Try to strike up an innocent conversation and change the subject? He dimly remembered that his HEV suit needed recharging...

Shoulders drooping with self-defeat, he knew he wouldn't be able to get any farther. Knowing he couldn't manage any more, he resolved to go for his suit. Before he could mess anything up by saying anything else, he darted out the door, taking one last look at her before he left; she was determinedly staring into the cabinet, putting the ointments away. He ducked out the door and left.

Outside the small examination room, in the main room of the medic bay, he was surprised by the fact that the world was still moving, oblivious to the two tiny people in a room together having...some kind of experience that, he now realized and admitted to himself sheepishly, felt like a lot more than it was. People moaned in pain from their injuries, medical staff bustled around hurriedly, shouting orders to each other, and the coppery smell of blood was in the air, reminding him that they were fighting a war. He was reminded of the role he and Alyx each individually had to play, and of the horrors that were now daily occurrences for him.

For a moment, as his mind pondered those everyday terrors, he thought with amusement to himself that he could fight a squadron of Combine soldiers single-handedly, take out an antlion guard with a shotgun by himself, and had even snuck into the Citadel and lived to tell about it...but what terrified him more than any of that was the idea of openly expressing his feelings for a woman who, while she was certainly a force to be reckoned with on her own, was the best ally he had and by all accounts thought the world of him. He felt himself blush and tried not to chortle at himself.

Then he went to see where his suit arm had gotten to.


End file.
